Subject:
Our out of control defense spending
To:
Sen. Harry Reid
November 4, 2009
Our out of control defense spending
From President Dwight Eisenhower onward, the budget of the Defense Department has grown year after year with the unstoppoble purchase of new and highly expensive weapons sysems many of which the military itself said it does not need or want.
Why?
Before leaving the White House, President Dwight Eisenhower warned America of the nefarious influence of what he called "the military-industrial complex" on the Pentagon and the Congress. He was, in effect saying that the Pentagon and the Congress were hostage to this military-industrial complex, a dark conspiracy responsible for those new, highly expensive and superfluous weapons systems.
As a result the annual U.S. Defense budgets have become bloated beyond all rhyme and reason. The Defense budget for 2009 alone, at $680 billion, is more than half the total of the military budgets of all nations on our planet, including Russia and China. It is more than the total of the military budgets of the other 26 members of NATO!
It looks like for the first time an American president, President Barack Obama, and his Secretary of Defense, Mr. Robert Gates, have succeeded finally in defying the powerful military-industrial complex. Although they could have done more to pare down the budget of the Defense Department by refusing to go along with the purchase of more F22 fighter aircraft beyond the 187 which the military now has, as well as refusing to buy more of the billion-dollar Virginia-class Navy nuclear submarines and the antiquated C130 cargo planes.
There is likewise no good reason for the Navy to get more of the Nimitz-class super-aircraft carrier, each one of which costs $5 billion and requires at least $1 billion a year to keep up. The Navy already has 10 of these supercarriers and it's running out of ocean where to put them.
It is pure folly for the U.S. to be continuing to buy these obscenely expensive super-weapons systems, absent a super enemy. The U.S. military does not need these against al-Qaeda, the Taliban or the Somali pirates who have only AK47s and RPGs.
Papillion , NE
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